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It would not be too fanciful to see The Nanny as Hammer's horror version of
Mary Poppins (US, 1964). Its eponymous heroine is actually referred to as 'Mary
Poppins' at one stage and the family seems to see her in an idealised light as
the devoted domestic who lightens the family load; it is only Joey
who insists she is trying to kill him. This is not the first time Seth Holt has
been involved on a film about a lethal lady in a nanny-ridden England, for he
was also the associate producer on The Ladykillers (d. Alexander Mackendrick,
1955).
Cinematically, The Nanny is a knowing film. With its dark deeds around a
shower-curtain and bathtub, and deranged monologues to the dead, it teasingly
invokes Psycho (US, d. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). The casting of Bette Davis,
fresh from her tour-de-force in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (US, 1963),
brings frissons of fear, and there is a smart allusion to one of her most famous
moments of screen villainy when, as in The Little Foxes (US, 1941), she refuses
to fetch the medicine that might save someone's life.
Yet there is also a compelling restraint and conviction about the film, quite
different in style from Hammer's characteristic Gothic rhapsodies but typical of
Holt, where suspense is generated from suggestion more than melodrama. Events
and characters have an intriguing intricacy of perspective. The film's core
tragedy is both poignant and appalling in its consequences. Joey might initially
seem a monster (as a nurse describes him) but his behaviour can also be
explained by his anger at not being believed and his exasperation with
ineffectual parents, who allow Nanny a disproportionate influence on the
household. Nanny is eventually revealed as the real monster, but her behaviour
too has a plausible psychological base, being a desperate bid for
self-protection after a single act of carelessness, at a moment of personal
trauma, has threatened to undermine the life of service to which she has devoted
herself. In other hands, Nanny's final rescue of Joey from drowning might seem
contrived; here it is movingly rendered as a guilty woman's grasp at redemption.
Bette Davis is particularly awesome here, and indeed all the performances are
splendid. Seth Holt's subtle and unerring command of pacing, composition and
structure compels one to ponder anew Christopher Lee's claim for him as 'one of
the best British directors ever'.
Neil Sinyard
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1. Disturbed trick (4:36)
Production stills
Monthly Film Bulletin review
